David Allen by:Starr Syvertsen and Chang Xiong

13Mar10

David Allen (1944 – 1999) was a film and television stop-motion model animator. Some of Allen’s earliest animation work can be seen in the 1971 16mm studend film, “Equinox”, expanded from a short film to a feature length film by Jack H. Harris, later retitled “The Beast” for VHS video release in the 80s. Allen had been woking
for years in animation, mostly doing commercial like the Pillsbury Doughboy. His ground-breaking model animation was a Volkswagen commercial made in 1972, which King Kong spot a gaint version of a car from his Empire State Building perch in New York. Allen join with Jim Danforth, a long time friend, to provide model animation for the low-budget horror film, “The Crater Lake Monster”. Then he did model animation for the independent feature film, “Planet of Dinosaurs”, and animated the aliens in anotherlow-budget sci-fi film, “Laserblast”. His production company, David Allen Productions, also did visual effects and model animation for thebizarre monster movie, “Freaked” in 1992. He died of cancer on Monday, August 16, 1999 at the age of 55.